[ILUG] ILUG @ CESI - Thanks

[John Hegarty]

Hi All,

On behalf CESI I want to send out a note of thanks to the ILUG folk who
setup and managed the  Linux Internet Cafe at the Computer Education Society
of Ireland annual conference yesterday and today.

The theme for the conference was "Teachers Using ICT" and the Internet Cafe
gave teachers a hands on opportunity to try out Edubuntu thin clients,  OLPC
laptops and an Asus eeepc. It also gave them an opportunity to ask quite
detailed questions and get well informed answers on all things Linux.

The folk involved - Frank Duignan, Karl O'Dwyer (in spirit), Patrick
O'Connor, Proinnsias Breathnach, Christian Kortenhorst and Ken Guest. CESI
are especially grateful to Patrick who produced a broadband router out of
nowhere when the one providing internet access to the whole venue died on
Friday morning. We would have been badly stuck and indeed embarrassed to
have it said of us that we were and ICT conference with no Internet access.

A special note of thanks to Gavin McCullagh who gave an excellent
presentation on Edubuntu on the opening day. I note the comment on the
conference blog from the ICT Advisor in Drumcondra Education Centre who is
keen to visit Mount Temple, where Gavin has provided much help and advice to
the teachers and students, to see the work going on there.

A special note of thanks also to James McBoyle who entrusted us with his
OLPC laptop that only arrived to him a few days before the conference.

It was quite notable at a number of the talks that words and phrases like
opensource, cross platform compatible, Openoffice, Firefox, Moodle, Audacity
etc are becoming part of the common language of teachers involved in IT. It
is still very much a Windows world in schools but I am conscious that the
level of awareness and openness to other ways of doing things is growing. In
particular if someone had been selling the Asus eeepc they would have sold
quite a few over the last couple of days. Any others at the conference share
these thoughts?

Thanks

jh

-- 
John Hegarty,
Clongowes Wood College,
Clane,
County Kildare,
Ireland.

00 353 (0)45 868202